Hues of a Colorless Rainbow
by CheckY9urPrivileges
Summary: Rose Lalonde had always revered her brother from the short time she'd known him as a child. But when he comes back from Britain to live with her and her mother, things don't go exactly as she expects them too. Things get even crazier when Rose finds out that her and her friends have been targeted by a notorious assassination organization: the Felt.
1. Chapter 1

Rose Lalonde sat silently on one of the smooth plastic benches that sat by the entrance of the train station. Every few seconds, she would re-position herself on the uncomfortably hard seat, until her mother laid a firm hand on her shoulder, signaling that she stop.

Instead, Rose busied herself with her hands, twirling her thumbs around each other in her interlocked fists. Around and around they went, as though they were performing some mindlessly repetitive dance. She quickly grew bored of this, pulling her hands apart and crossing her legs instead, tapping one foot absentmindedly.

Roxy Lalonde looked disapprovingly at her daughter, but didn't say anything. Though Rose's sheer amount of excited energy unsettled Roxy, she was glad to see her daughter so happy. The poor girl had become so reserved lately, locking herself in her room for great lengths of time, standing a chair against her door so that it couldn't be opened.

Rose had been reading a lot more lately as well, which wasn't a bad thing, but her reading material wasn't exactly...normal...for someone her age. Not just this, but she had taken to reading the disturbing texts obsessively, as if silently worshiping its contents.

Roxy sighed to herself. Rose had once been such a happy girl, always smiling. Ever since her brother had left though, the poor child had assumed a much gloomier personality.

Currently, Rose sat still, her fists clenched firmly in her lap, desperately trying not to look up at the clock that hung on the wall a few feet from where she and her mother were sitting. Resolving to give in to a quick glance, she noted that it would still be another ten minutes or so until his train arrived. But she'd been waiting nearly a lifetime already, she could stand to wait a few minutes longer.

Rose stared straight, determined not to look at the clock again. She knew from experience how dangerous clock-watching could be.

In an attempt to take her mind off the reprehensible contraption, she tried to focus on the odd architecture of the building, inspecting its layout and design in almost a critical manner.

The building was tall and spacious, with metal beams laid across the ceiling high above. It was built so that if seen from an aerial view, it would look almost like a capital letter L. Currently, Rose sat where the bottom, shorter bit of the letter was located. There were windows everywhere, letting light in from above, the bright rays pooling in the center of the station. Four lines of tracks, electric wires strung taught above them, sat in the middle of the room.

Rose had only ever been on a train once, a few years ago for a school trip. She'd remembered going to a station like this, only this one was much larger. She smiled to herself at the memory of John refusing to board the tracks out of an irrational fear of being eaten by the train, having been made to believe this by Dave. Rose had finally persuaded her terrified friend by posing the question of how his dad had gotten to work everyday if the train truly did consume its passengers.

Reluctantly, John agreed to get on, and by the time they'd arrived at the next stop, he was grinning uncontrollably. One point for logical thinking and reasoning, zero for...whatever Dave thought he was doing by giving John an irrational fear of trains.

Rose dragged her gaze towards the far side of the tracks, its entrance much busier than the one next to her. She watched people walk in and out of the arched gate, busy people that moved swiftly, as though they were in some sort of hurry to get somewhere very important, and didn't have time for all of this nonsense.

There were families as well, young children clinging needily to their parents' hands as they were dragged through the station. Bright-eyed and naive, everything seemed new to them, and they would stop and point towards different commodities of the structure excitedly. Their parents would quickly quiet them, dragging them along towards one terminal or another.

Few people left the station; it was still too early for many trains to have arrived yet. Save the few that had been traveling diligently all night, breaking through the darkness with their sleek metal bodies, their headlights piercing beams of light into the thick cover of darkness.

Rose was finding it more and more difficult to keep herself occupied.

Unable to resist the nagging urge any longer, her eyes quickly darted in the direction of the clock. She refused to give the infuriating contraption complete submission by turning her head to face it.

She wasn't completely positive from the quick look she'd gotten, but only about five minutes had gone by. Rose groaned inwardly. This was taking forever.

She turned her gaze towards her mother without swiveling her neck, debating on whether to ask or not...

"Can I-?" She said, her eyes flicking back towards the opposite side of the station.

"Yes." Roxy said almost immediately, answering Rose's unspoken question with practiced ease.

Dammit. She'd known what Rose was going to say. She'd won this round. But her slight taste of the sweet juices of victory would be short-lived at best. Rose would not be outdone. She was simply, the best.

Standing up, she brushed her pitch black dress off, eliminating any particles of dirt or dust that had clung to her. She turned, giving her mother the biggest, sappiest looking smile of gratitude seen by the eyes of man, before walking quickly in the direction of the terminal where her brother was supposed to arrive.

As soon as Rose had turned the corner of the building, rendering her free of the sight of her mother, she broke into a run, a grin tearing across her face. An expression rarely harbored by the young teen, causing the muscles in her cheeks to feel weird and oddly strained. But that didn't matter, because finally after all these years, all those lonely years, she was going to see her dear brother again!

Rose couldn't even remember the last time she'd been this openly excited.

Her memories of before her brother left were happy ones. She wasn't like she was now, which is to say that she wasn't as careful about her show of emotion, and didn't traipse around in such dark clothes and makeup.

She'd always been so happy when he was around. He would always play whatever game she wanted to without interjection (even when that game was dress-up, a passion for Rose when she was younger. She supposed it mirrored her interest in fashion that she held today), genuinely being interested in whatever Rose wanted to do.

That was one thing she loved so much about her brother; that he had always been so interested in her, even when nobody else seemed to be.

A disturbing image of him and her, huddled in the corner of their shared room listening to the angry screams of their parents rose to mind, causing Rose to visibly shudder. She quickly pushed the unpleasant thought towards the back of her mind, determined to remain positive for when her brother arrived.

Rose, finally spotting terminal four, practically sprinted to the small cluster of poles and benches, earning her more than a few critical stares, but she didn't care. This was it, the one that her brother had outlined as his arrival point in his most recent letter.

It was a fun hobby of Rose's, exchanging letters with him. It was one of the only things that she looked forward to after leaving the world of school and friends in exchange for her boring home life. Sometimes, months or even a full year would go by before she'd receive a reply, and Rose would have to rack her brain to remember what she'd written in the first place. This in it of itself posed a much welcomed mental challenge, and Rose had thoroughly enjoyed her friendly banter with the male.

There weren't many others like her, intellectually speaking, and sometimes she'd feel more than a little lonely. But her brother was a perfect mental fit, his intellect almost matching her own. She greatly enjoyed having educated and complicated conversations with him, without having the receiving end looking utterly lost. Or, however that would be translated in letter form.

Though why he'd chosen to take the train, she had no clue. It would have been far more practical to travel by airplane rather than take a boat and train. A lot faster too.

But Rose didn't let this bother her. He _had_ spent three years in Britain (not to mention all that time he'd spent on the west coast), and perhaps he had suffered this laps in judgment upon his desire to return home after so long.

There was a slight sound in the distance, of something very big moving very fast. The sound gradually increased in volume, until Rose could physically feel the floor vibrate. She looked over to see the sleek metal train slide into the station, its doors stopping inches from Rose's face.

In her eagerness, she hadn't realized how close she'd ventured to the edge of the terminal, and automatically took a few tentative steps back.

The automatic metal doors slid open, stopping with a click. Almost immediately, people began pouring out of the train and into the station. She jumped back in surprise at the sheer mass of passengers that had suddenly flooded towards her. Rose had to move around them, trying not to get hit by people too weary from traveling all night to pay attention properly.

She stood on her toes, looking over the heads of people in search of her brother. As more and more passengers exited the train, the crowd around Rose began to thin out, giving her a clearer view of the terminal around her. Yet she still hadn't caught sight of her brother.

She knew she hadn't missed him. The boy was a bit of an oddity among people, and not just in the complexity of his speech.

From what she remembered from her childhood, he had bright white hair, whiter even than Rose's pale blonde locks. It was due to a discoloration in his body's pigment. This same condition also caused his skin to appear an almost sickly shade of grey.

So far, no one had come even close to this description. Rose hadn't even seen anyone around his age pass by; just tired adults, their eyes blank and backs arched from the weight of fatigue.

She wasn't necessarily worried that her brother wouldn't be on the train. If he was anything like her, he'd be the last one to get off, not wanting to fight with the immense crowd of people. But Rose's heart dropped when the last person, an old man carrying a rather large brief case, climbed off the train, the doors sliding shut behind him.

Disappointment, and even a small sense of betrayal filled her.

Wondering if she had perhaps gotten wrong information somehow, Rose turned and began walking back towards the entrance, dragging her feet in disappointment at her brother's failure to arrive. Sullenly, she trudged through the crowds of passengers that had just gotten off, not feeling motivated enough to move against the mass of people.

The crowd was quiet, save a few talking in hushed tones, and one man who seemed to be getting very upset about something someone had said over the phone.

Suddenly, another sound broke through the silence, one causing a sharp pain to begin to form at the back of Rose's skull. Towards the front of the crowd, a bright, happy voice had begun babbling about something. No, due to the high frequency of the tone, _chirping_ would be a better word to describe the incredibly obnoxious sound.

Rose instinctively pressed her two index fingers to her temples, wondering who's kid that could be up there, and desperately wishing that their parents would shut him up. She wasn't in the mood.

But to her dismay, the child didn't stop talking. The initial pain in Rose's head began to form into a full on headache.

She couldn't make out what he was saying, the boy was too far away for his words to come to anything but an incomprehensible slur. This, consequently, did not lower the level of annoyance in his voice, and if anything increased it.

Just when Rose was about to go up there and shut the kid up herself, she froze. Something about what he'd just said sounded oddly mundane. Some word, though she couldn't make out what or how she knew he'd said it, had sounded somehow...familiar. She slowly lowered her hands, letting them fall to her sides as she pricked her ears in an attempt to pick up on the familiarity.

Curiosity taking the place of the throbbing in her head, Rose pushed past a few grumbling people, trying to make out what the boy was saying. She was closer now, close enough to form the babble into comprehensible words, but she still couldn't see their owner. She was close enough so that she could hear his words, but just barely.

She got the impression that he was talking to a bunch of different people, but he communed with them as if they had been best friends their entire life.

"...if you do," Rose heard him say. The phrase made no sense to her, a strange sensation that she did not very much enjoy. She wormed her way through the crowd, desperately trying to make sense of the boy's objectives.

"Hi, can you tell me if you've seen-"

The rest of his sentence was cut off as Rose was jostled backwards, and out of hearing range.

What had the boy said? It sounded almost as if he were...looking for someone.

A tangled sense of dread and anxiety formed a knot at the base of Rose's chest.  
>Could he be...?<br>No.  
>Absolutely not.<br>This couldn't possibly be her brother, the intelligent, cool guy who had been sending her all those letters.  
>Could it?<p>

No, this boy was far to unpractical, and way too...happy.

But something at the back of her mind told her that she was not wrong about her suspicions. She pushed the nagging fear aside, scrambling forward in a desperate attempt to confirm the untruthfulness of her hypothesis.

Finally, almost there. She could hear his voice now, clearer than before. He sounded young, but only about her age instead of the child she had initially thought he was. Closer, closer...

She could almost see him, almost hear each annunciation of each syllable.

Then she heard it. One word.  
>Rose stopped, her blood running cold. People had to push around her to get by, but she didn't care.<br>No.  
>Not possible.<br>Inconceivable.

The sense of dread that had slowly been growing in her chest rose to the back of her throat, and she tasted bile in her mouth as she saw a single figure pop out of the mass of people. He had a shock of white hair that looked desperately unkempt, and it kept falling in his eyes. He wore a bright green tailcoat paired with a faded red bow tie.

And his skin was completely grey.

He stood at the edge of the crowd, slowly growing smaller as they turned the corner of the station. A confused expression occupied his features.

_Please don't see me. Please don't see me. Please don't see me. Please please please don't let him see me. _She thought frantically, praying that this energetic boy wasn't her brother. But even she couldn't deny it any longer.

His eyes, faded white so that he almost looked blind, met her clear purple ones. His face lit up, any splinter of hope Rose had retained smashing to bits.

He ran towards her, waving his hand high in the air excitedly.

Rose couldn't move, couldn't breath. She couldn't force her legs to propel her away from the whole situation, no matter how bad she wanted them to. Her feet, cloaked in a pair of worn grey sneakers, refused to budge from their position on the smooth tile floor.

It was far too late now anyway. She couldn't get far now without him catching up to her.

He ran up, slowing his pace to a stop. His breaths came in ragged spurts from sprinting. This, of course, did not suppress the gigantic smile that was now stretched across his face.

"Rose! It's really you! I didn't recognize you at first, but now I'm sure of it! You are Rose, aren't you?" He said breathlessly, his tone filled with so much enthusiasm that Rose wanted to puke.

All she could do was nod, mechanically tipping her head down slightly. She looked into his eyes, which were practically bursting with positive energy. Rose unclenched her jaw, realizing that her whole body had stiffened when he'd run towards her.

Giving a half-hearted smile, Rose said simply "Hello. It's been a long time Calmasis."

**((Calmasis is mentioned somewhere in Act 6 by Roxy as Alpha Rose's main character of her highly popular book series. His design is influenced by the cherubs and Rose's own dark thoughts. The title comes from the fact that I refuse to use any trolls in this fan fiction. I plan to write about all the characters that don't get as much written about them, starting with Calmasis.**

**To show just how sadly under appreciated he is, Calmasis doesn't have a character tag on**

**I plan to update regularly, hopefully a chapter a week))**


	2. Chapter 2

But that had been two years ago.

_Two years_ Rose marveled, _two years I have successfully put up with his horse shit._

Her thoughts turned bitter as she recollected upon the last hellish twenty four months of her life.

Calmasis wasn't what she'd thought at all. In his letters, he'd always seemed so formal, so _practical_. But in actuality, he was no more than an overgrown toddler; always excited and optimistic about everything. Rose could not put into words the massive amount of pure loathing that washed over her every time she heard his voice, or the hatred that seeped through her veins like deadly poison whenever she saw him.

He was just so goddamn _happy_ all the time.  
>But that wasn't the worst part.<p>

If Rose had thought her passive aggressive battles with her mother had been challenging, these minor skirmishes were nothing compared to Calmasis' abilities. It was as if he'd been studying the art of horse shittery his entire life, preparing for the one moment when he'd finally get to spar against Rose. It was terrible.

Though his letters were misleading in regards to his attitude, infuriatingly they were head on in terms of mental comprehension. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if Calmasis had gotten one of his friends to write the notes for him, to make him seem smarter, but sadly this wasn't the case. The damn boy was just as smart as her, and was able to not only follow but _contradict_ her lengthy conversations. Yet he had never so much as picked up any of the books Rose possessed, nor any others of advanced literary difficulty as far as she could tell.

But these things, these minor annoyances, these were trivial affairs. As far as the whole passive-aggressive thing went, Rose was confident that she could hold her own, even against as formidable an adversary as her brother had turned out to be. And at least she was actually able to argue her point (and even critique it in some cases where her arguments weren't as...sturdy as she would like them to be) instead of drawling on about it to some blank-faced victim.

These things were bearable. Minor deviations in her life. No, what really got under her skin was his aptitude for magic.

The art of magic had once been a hobby for Rose. A mere pass-time in which she would spend bemusing herself with little parlor tricks or reading abstract accounts of some of the finer sorcerers (occasionally she would write some of her own). But somewhere about three years ago, it suddenly become serious.

Rose would lock herself in her room; practicing heinous incantations and slowly surrendering her soul to the unrelenting darkness of existence. And she didn't want to boast or anything, but she was pretty damn good at it.

She could summon any of the mid-level horror terrors at will; a feat even the most practiced of artisans could scarcely replicate. She had memorized every dark spell in her books, even gone so far as to seek out and learn the forbidden ones, too dark even for the most maniacal to wield.

Not only this, but she had come into possession of two of the most powerful weapons forged in the entire existence of dark magic itself; the THORNS OF OGOLOTH.

These weapons, if they were to fall into the wrong hands, could pose the end of the world...the end of existence itself. The needles themselves drew power from the Deep One; a being so immensely powerful, so terribly horrible, that any horror terror that any dark wizard could think to summon would bow before its immense radiation of dark energy.

And yet she'd never once won a fight with her brother.

It's not like she lost or anything, she was far too skilled for that, but he had come alarmingly close on more than one occasion. In fact they had sparred so many times with no conclusive victor, that the whole ordeal had become a sort of joke to Calmasis. They served as nothing more than meager ploys to drag out his time.

He wouldn't even try anymore, he'd just do something so immensely stupid that it would put Dave's "ironic" plights to shame. And then he'd just run away.

And the infuriating part was that she couldn't stop him.

But the worst part, the worst part by _far, _was how he was successfully evading her with magic that derived its power from the forces of pure and good energy. The light, the opposite of the dark. That frilly, frou frou stuff used by narcissistic magicians to get rich or famous. She absolutely _loathed_ the stuff. And yet Calmasis had somehow mastered the art, well enough in fact that he could hold his own against a dark wizard.

Yet he never studied. He never stayed up late at night, poring over complicated texts. Never went through the painstakingly torturous agony that must be endured during the training of a caliginous sorcerer. Never, not once, had he even _owned_ a literary book of curses, Rose guessed. It was unbearable.

"Rooooose hurry up! We're going to be late to school again if you don't get ready faster!"

There it was now.  
>That insistent chirping that refused to leave her alone.<br>Speak of the devil.

Grumbling to herself, Rose twisted the nozzle of the shower, cutting off the stream of hot water that had been pouring over her for the past twenty minutes. She shivered almost immediately as a chill began to snake its way around her bare skin.

It had started getting colder recently; the signs of fall's end had begun to appear last week, about mid-November. There weren't any leaves left on the trees, and the birds and squirrels that normally flitted about the area were nowhere to be seen. The weather had begun to grow colder as well, and late autumn showers plagued the long nights. This morning was by far the coldest.

Grabbing a towel from the rack beside her, Rose quickly dried off and began pulling on her clothes for school. She always worn the same long sleeved black shirt with a small white insignia decorating the front chest region, paired with dark black jeans. Even if it were a hundred degrees outside, she'd never leave the house without the dark clothes.

Rose didn't like to be outside very much, so she never got too hot in the getup anyway. But the lack of sunlight had taken quite a toll on her skin, which was always a pale shade of white.

But it was cold enough today, that Rose grabbed a pullover from the hook on the back of the door. The sweatshirt was far too big for her slender frame, wrapping around her body awkwardly as she pulled it over her head. Her hands didn't even exceed the length of the sleeves, and she had to roll them up to her wrists.

There was another knock on the door, reminding Rose of her time limit.

Grabbing her makeup bag from the counter next to the sink, she pulled out a tube of dark black lipstick, hastily applying the product. She'd been wearing dark makeup like this for years so even though she rushed it still looked presentable. The dark black posed a dreary contrast for her painfully white skin.

Finally, she grabbed her signature black head band which had been previously leaning precariously over the edge of the counter, and slid it over her short-cut blonde hair. There. Perfect.

Rose opened the door to a rush of cold air, thankful that she'd had the insight to put on a jacket.

Outside, Calmasis was standing in the hallway. He was still in his pajamas, and his hair was flattened to one side from sleeping on it all night. He looked so tired that he might fall over, but still, he smiled at Rose as she exited the bathroom. Rose returned the gesture with a small half grin, attempting to convey feelings of intense sentiment as she nodded for him to go in.

"Thanks!" he said rushing past her, slamming the door behind him. The block of light that had been emanating from the bathroom slid into blackness as Calmasis closed the door, cloaking the hallway in an eerie darkness.

Rose turned and began walking towards the kitchen in hopes of finding something to eat without too much interaction with anyone else. As soon as she'd turned the corner of the hall that led to the kitchen, the fake smile she'd plastered on her face fell to an indignant smirk.

She'd learned the hard way that she must continue the charade until she was completely out of sight. Once, Calmasis had opened the door again after entering the bathroom, saying that he'd forgotten it they'd had math homework or not, and if she remembered? He'd instantly seen the look of venom in her eyes that always fell into place once he'd closed the door, and slowly backed into the bathroom again, saying never mind he'd copy it from a friend.

See what she meant? Roxy didn't hold a word to him. Not a breath.

Rose slunk into the dark kitchen, illuminated only by the few slivers of grey morning light that managed to peek through the gaps in the closed curtains. Good. Her mom wasn't up yet.

Practically tiptoeing into the extravagant kitchen, Rose quickly grabbed a bagel from above the microwave, popping it in the toaster and pushing down the lever. As she waited for her breakfast to heat up, she examined the interior of the kitchen. Saying that the room was spacious would be an understatement. It was huge.

The tile floor was polished to the point of reflection, and in the place of a table was a fancy bar of sorts. Complete with alcoholic beverages. In fact, practically the only thing that occupied the kitchen was alcohol. Rose's mom had a bit of a problem with it. You'd never find her without some form of intoxicating substance in one hand.

And then there was the giant wizard statue in the corner. Rose chose to ignore that. It was large and bronze and held the gaze of an evil demon so maniacal that Rose could feel its fierce gaze pierce her skull whenever she turned her back to the wretched thing. She'd covered it with a sheet on more than one occasion, but her mom had just removed it every time. She'd once asked Rose if she was scared of the wizard, and Rose had said no. But nonetheless, she'd found a pair of sunglasses dawning his presence the next day.

_Pop_

Rose grabbed the bagel with the tips of her fingers, trying not to burn them on the hot food item, and hurried out of the room. She tried to avoid contact with her mother as much as possible. This was easier to accomplish in the mornings, for Roxy almost always slept in (most likely this had something to do with her drinking problem).

This also meant that Rose had to walk with Calmasis to school everyday (her mom was never up early enough to drive them, and none of the bus routes passed by their house), having to make the one and a half mile trek in heat, rain, and snow alike. Not to mention that she had to walk next to her brother for an hour each day.

Rose quietly twisted the handle of the door that led to her room, careful not to make a sound. Sliding the door shut behind her, she flopped down on her bed, already exhausted by the day. She hadn't opened the curtains yet, and the room was oddly warm in comparison to the rest of the house.

The heat seemed to surround her, engulfing her in a blanket of warm and comfort. She hadn't realized before how tired she was. Her eyes began to flicker, her breathing growing quieter and more steady. Slowly, her lids shut, blocking out any light from the outside world and leaving her in a realm of complete darkness.

Rose woke to Calmasis jerking her body roughly up and down on the bed. When he saw her eyes open, squinting against the light of the open curtains, a wave of relief washed over her face. _Why is he so worried?_ she thought _I only fell asleep_. Calmasis grabbed Rose's hand, hauling her up into a sitting position.

"Come on Rose! Why'd you fall asleep! We're already late as it is, now we'll have to run to school!" Calmasis said, his tone almost bitter. Almost. He was never bitter, never frowning. That was just how Calmasis lived.

One thing that Rose and Calmasis _did _have in common, was their study habits. Both were hard-working students, both had straight A's. And both hated to be late for school.

Pushing her hair down into a more acceptable position, Rose grabbed her backpack off the bed post and began piling books and papers in. She grabbed her Grimoire book, something that she almost never left the house without. Spotting her wands on the desk, she grabbed those and decided to shove them in too.

Rose ran out of the room, stopping short at the front door where Calmasis stood. He was draped in a dull green sweater, waiting for her.

"Ready?" he asked. She nodded.

The door swung open to a world of white. Apparently it had snowed over night.

Slinging her backpack over her shoulder, Rose proceeded to exit through the door Calmasis had so kindly held open for her. She'd need to remember to open the door for him at school. Maybe even walk him to class. It was a full-time job keeping up with Calmasis' constant passive-aggressive gestures.

Rose descended the long twisting driveway that led up to their mansion of a house, stepping lightly onto the cold concrete sidewalk that wound its way around the forest at the edge of the yard. Calmasis jogged up to join her, almost slipping on the slick ice coating that had formed on the top of the drive. His breaths came out in little white clouds of fog from the bitter cold air that froze the landscape around them.

The sidewalk was completely covered in snow; nobody within a one-mile radius caring enough to sweep the stuff away. So Rose and Calmasis had to trudge ankle-deep through the cold slush. With everything so white, Calmasis struggled with keeping sight of the road, and kept drifting to one side so that he would occasionally lose his footing and step off the path.

The snow wasn't unbearably thick, an inch at most, but everything was blanketed in the stuff. The white powder clung to the trees, weighing down the branches of the tall pines.

The road began to turn into the forest, the path growing narrower the deeper they were submerged in the scent of frosted pine. The tallness and density of the thicket blocked Rose's field of vision to only a few yards. She looked out into the ocean of tangled branches, straining to see beyond the first layer or two of greenery.

The snow had clustered around the edges of the sidewalk, but deeper in the forest it lay in rough patches, bits of brown grass popping up here and there. The trees had blocked some of the effects of the flurry, and there were notably sized bare spots around their trunks.

Rose turned her gaze skyward towards the veil of dark grey that hung above the world. It would probably snow again soon. Maybe even before they got out of school.

Among the trees, almost hidden against the pale landscape, stood a rather large warehouse-like structure. It was an old laboratory of sorts, deserted and left to rot many years ago. It had always been there, as long as Rose could remember, but it'd never served any other purpose than to decorate the otherwise dreary sky with its clunky cubical design. She'd never been inside before, hadn't even gotten closer than this really, but she's always been curious as to what mysteries the old structure could hold.

Once, before Calmasis had come, she'd asked her mother what the building's purpose had been. Roxy had stopped reading the book in her hand (probably hadn't even been really reading it in the first place), and looked at Rose with an expression that almost conveyed something close to nostalgia.

"Oh, that place has been empty for quite some time now. But, a very long time ago, before you were born, it used to be a research laboratory."

"What kind of research?" Rose had asked, her curiosity growing.

"Nothing that you need worry about. But..." Roxy looked up. Here eyes were dead serious. "Rose. Promise me. You'll never go over there. Even if you are really curious, you won't go. Okay? It's dangerous. There's a lot of hazardous machines that haven't been touched in years. You could get hurt."

"...fine." Rose had said reluctantly.

A few months later, she'd brought the subject up again. "So, uh, the laboratory...why'd it get closed down?" she'd asked casually one night when they'd happened to be sitting in the same room again. She half expected her mother to brush her off and give her some nonsense excuse to get Rose to leave her alone, but to Rose's great surprise, she said;

"There was an explosion. Many people died, and almost everything was destroyed. Those who left from worry of their personal health quit because their life's work had been destroyed in a matter of minutes. They no longer had the passion to work on what had already been a failing project."

"Is that why no one lives here anymore?" Rose asked, attempting to conceal the curious tone in her voice. At this point, she'd begun to take part in the passive-aggressive ritual that she would one day so revere.

When she asked the question, she was referring to the empty houses that stood not five minutes away from where they sat now. There were whole expanses of neighborhood, whole communities, now nothing more than a shadowed ghost image of a former town. Rose had only ever seen it once, when they'd driven by on their way to drop Calmasis off at the airport. She'd been so young then, and the large lifeless buildings scared her.

"Yes. Everybody left." she'd said simply.

_And you were the only one who stayed_.  
>Rose wondered if her mother hadn't ever really wanted the lab to close at all. That living here she stood in denial of a life she once led, wallowing in the depression that her glory days were over. Her life's work standing right there, untouched and unfinished.<p>

There was no doubt that Roxy had worked at the laboratory. It was the only logical answer Rose could think of, and she wasn't _that _dense. How else could she have gotten so much money that she could support two children with no job and a drinking problem? Why else did they live here?

Ever since then, the laboratory had seemed like some great mystery to Rose. Something she wasn't allowed to know, a puzzle that she wasn't allowed to solve. She would sometimes look out her bedroom window and imagine what the people could have possibly been researching that could have been so dangerous.

She wasn't stupid, even when she was young. She knew her mother didn't give a crap about where Rose went or her safety or any of that. Roxy was hiding something.

The idea of the mysterious building consumed Rose, stealing away her every second of free time with thoughts as to what secrets it may hold. She'd imagine herself entering the forbidden area and finding a portal to another dimension, one in which there was no returning upon entry. Or that she'd discover some monster, some creature so horrendous that it had been locked up; imprisoned for its threat to the modern world.

She'd picture herself releasing the horrible beast, and winning it over with sheer cunning; bending its every thought to hers. This was one of her favorite ideas, and she would sometimes wish that it was true, no matter how ridiculous it may seem.

Perhaps these types of thoughts were what had led her to participate in the more gruesome forms of magic.

But as she'd gotten older, Rose began to think less and less of the laboratory, until she rarely even gave it a second glance as she walked to school each day. The novelty had faded. She'd realized that her notions had been frivolous and naive. They'd been nothing but the sick dream of a child. And she wasn't asleep anymore.

**/A/N: sorry its late. A lot late. I had it written a while ago but put off editing. Hope you like it. I tried to get in more action this time rather than Rose just talking to herself again./**


	3. Chapter 3

Calmasis and Rose had been walking for a while now, almost half an hour, if Calmasis's watch was correct. They'd left the forest behind some time ago, and the dense thicket of trees had opened to wide fields blanketed in snow.

During the summer they were filled as far as the eye could see with raspberry bushes that filled the air with the fragrance of fruit and overturned soil.

Calmasis would sometimes try to grab a handful of the berries as they passed by, and once he got caught by one of the farmers. He and Rose had needed to run the entire way to school, Calmasis still clutching the red berries in his hand. But now the fields were white and desolate, void of any life.

The sky was almost the same shade as the berry fields, so it almost looked as if the world went on forever, like they had been removed from all time and space and were just walking through complete nothingness.

Rose looked over at her brother, who was steadily trudging along beside her with his hands in his pockets. He looked like a green smudge of paint on the blank canvas of snow behind him.

Calmasis's pale complexion blended so well with his surroundings that it almost looked as if his emerald green jacket was moving of its own accord, almost as if it were some sort of specter.

Green was his favorite color, Rose guessed, though he'd never told her. He almost always wore green clothing. _That, and that ridiculous red bow tie_ Rose thought to herself bitterly.

As if somehow sensing her critical thought, Calmasis turned his head to face Rose, and opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something. Apparently he changed his mind, because he quickly closed it again and returned his attention to not tripping off the sidewalk.

After a few more seconds of silence, Calmasis, without looking up from his feet, began to speak.

"Hey, uh, Rose?"

"What."

Whoops. She hadn't meant to sound so indifferent. the passive-aggressive meter was beginning to point in Calmasis's favor.

But he hadn't seemed to notice the tone of her voice, and continued speaking as if he hadn't heard her.

"Rose, I...I've been meaning to tell you this for a while now...but..." Calmasis trailed off into silence, seeming to struggle with whatever he had wanted to say. A knot of worry began twisting its way around Rose's stomach. Whatever Calmasis was trying so desperately to tell her couldn't be good if he was acting like this.

Normally, the boy couldn't keep his mouth shut, and it was rare that he kept secrets from Rose. Rare that he kept secrets at all. So whatever he had to say most likely wouldn't effect her, and if it did, if he wanted her to do something difficult for him, she could just say no. She ran over every possible contingency in her head, tried to find any possible outcome that would negatively effect her. Rose couldn't think of any.

But she simply couldn't shake the feeling of discontent that was now burrowing its way through her chest.

Calmasis suddenly stopped and stood rigidly on the edge of the road. This had caught Rose off guard, and she had to retrace her steps back a few paces. Stopping a few feet in front of Calmasis, she turned to face him, ready to listen to whatever it was he had to say.

Calmasis was staring at his shoes, his hair hanging in messy tangles over his face. It fell over his eyes, sheathing him in a veil of thick white knots, so that Rose couldn't make out his expression.

"Well? What is it? What did you want to tell me?" Rose snapped, beginning to grow impatient with Calmasis's odd behavior. "Just spit it o-"

"Rose I think you should stop using magic." The words tumbled out of his mouth, and fell flat on the ground. They lingered there, shifting but never dissipating, as Rose attempted to comprehend what she'd just heard.

The request just sat there, glaring at her, daring her to respond. Nothing moved, nothing made a sound. Slowly, Calmasis raised his head enough to nervously glance up at Rose.

Her face was blank. The dark mask that she used to conceal herself slowly fell away. He didn't want her to...what? But wait...had she heard him correctly...?

"Why." Rose demanded, breaking the eerie silence. The words felt dry in her mouth, like someone was force-ably shoving a dusty cloth down her throat. They sucked all the moisture out of the moisture out of the air, so that her breath didn't even steam as she spoke.

They turned her throat into a desert as she inhaled, bringing oxygen into her body to aid the steadily growing fire that how course through her veins.

"Well I-"

"Why should I listen to you." She said, so calmly, so bitterly that Calmasis flinched at the menace the words held.

"Rose, I really think it'd be for the better if-"

"You use magic, don't you? Then how come I should stop! Why do you even _care_ what I do? It's my own damn business!" Rose said, her breathing coming in short ragged bursts from the strain of shouting.

Calmasis seemed shocked by her sudden outburst. She was usually so careful to mask her emotions around others, especially him. Rose had never openly shared her feelings of resentment with Calmasis, let alone yelled.

But this was different. Different than his annoying optimism, different than when he would almost beat her in fights that she always coaxed out of him herself. She could hold herself back then, could endure the frustration. But when he questioned her right to use magic, Rose couldn't just stand by and pretend nothing was wrong like she usually did.

It had become her lifeline; the one thing that remained constant and reliable. She'd spent hours practicing her craft, practicing and failing, getting so frustrated that she'd almost want to die. It was the one thing in her life that kept her soul tethered to this wretched place of light and joy. It was the very definition of her existence.

And he wanted her to just throw it all away.  
>Just like that.<p>

"Rose, you don't understand. It's for your own good."

"Oh, really? How could this possibly be for my own good? How would you know anything about my _own good_?!"

Calmasis seemed taken aback. Even Rose was a little shocked at the now apparent tantrum she was throwing. She wasn't usually this...moody.

_It's from years of suppressed emotion, _the psychiatrist part of her said, _from hating him so much, but keeping your feelings bottled up and masking them with petty competitions. He just asked you something, with no follow up. That's all it was, a simple request with no means of backing it. He's not threatening you, only asking. He can't force you to do anything you don't want to. Could you, perhaps, be suffering this lapse in your better judgement due to the refusal of harbored feelings of affection towards your brother?_

Rose pushed the thought aside. She may be acting irrational right now, but she didn't care. She'd never felt this made before in her life, and any rationalizing that she could come up with didn't change the fact that she was majorly pissed off.

"Now." Rose spat, venom coating her every word.

"Uh...what?" Calmasis asked almost innocently, looking at Rose with a look of genuine concern, as if he actually cared about what was going on with her. That wasn't normal, not at all. Weren't people supposed to get angry when others yelled at them for no viable reason? Damn Calmasis and damn his freakish sense of selflessness. She couldn't stand to put up with him any longer.

"If you think you have _any_ right to tell me to stop practicing my _art_..." Rose grabbed her wands out of the front pocket of her backpack, brandishing them menacingly, "then you have no idea what I will do to protect it."

She didn't think, just attacked, relying completely on impulse. Rose was far beyond strategy at this point.

A curse, one of the forbidden status, that she had been attempting to master for the past six months rocketed from her needles like inky black oil, flying straight towards Calmasis.

It was an especially painful curse, one that would supposedly leave an opponent in a state worse than death after only one shot. But the second she summoned it she regretted the decision.

Rose seemed to have finally come to her senses, slowly realizing just exactly what she'd done. Being cross with Calmasis was at least harmless enough. Death curses like these were forbidden for a reason, and he hadn't done anything nearly terrible enough to deserve the wicked fate Rose had now forced upon him.

Calmasis reacted instantly, so quickly in fact that Rose was swore he moved a second before she'd even finished muttering the incantation. Two beams of light solidified in his hands, and there was a flash of energy as the spell hit him that momentarily blinded Rose, forcing her to shield her eyes with the back of her hand.

But when Rose lowered her arm, expecting to find her brother lying in a pool of his own blood, she only saw him standing there as if nothing had happened.

Rose took a shaky step back. She felt like her lungs were about to explode, but refused to show any sign of weakness through uneven breathing. Her muscles felt like they were being ripped from her limbs, and she fought the urge to fall to the ground. Though she'd successfully cast it, the spell had taken a far greater toll on her body than she'd expected.

Instead, she focused on regulating her breaths. In out. In out.

She straightened herself from the crouched position she'd formed at the beginning of the ordeal. Clearing her throat, she pocketed the two wands, both still radiating dark energy, and brushed off the front of her jacket. A thin sheet of snowflakes had gathered on the fabric, making it look almost grey.

Rose, decidedly much more conscious of her actions than earlier, finally allowed herself to assess the situation. What had just happened? He'd blocked one of her more potent spells. How could that be possible? An action like that displayed far more potential than Calmasis had let on in his previous duels with Rose. Had he been...perhaps...holding back...?

And where had his wands come from? That's what she assumed the glowing sticks had been, at least. They'd just sort of...appeared. Out of thin air. She couldn't do that. Why couldn't she do that.

"Rose don't go through this with me."

Rose's eyes darted up to Calmasis's face. He wore a serious, almost condescending expression. His lips were curled so that they almost formed a sneer. His eyes were like dark holed boring into her purple irises, his stare one of dark hatred born of something just as strong as Rose's insistent loathing.

No. It was worse than that. He looked as if he _wanted_ to hate her, but refused to stoop down to her level. As if she weren't good enough to be hated by him.

"I told you once and I'll tell you again Rose. Give up magic. It's not a sport for children."

Then he turned and walked away, leaving Rose standing dumbfounded in the middle of the sidewalk staring at the back of his barely visible head as it slowly bobbed further and further away from her. She was so shocked by what had just happened, that she hadn't even been able to find the strength to protest.

The second the first words had left her lips during her outburst earlier, she knew she'd blown it. That she'd shown Calmasis her true sentiments towards him. No one, not even _him_, could possibly be dense enough not to piece together what she'd implied. But Rose hadn't been the only one with masked emotions.

The look in Calmasis's eyes was a familiar one. It was the look that always appeared on Rose if she happened to look into a mirror. And it wasn't any normal level of morbidity that filled those two black holes that she'd once believed so transparent.

These were the eyes that had witnessed, witnessed and performed dark magic of the most caliginous shade.

All her life Rose had thought she'd been the unrivaled master of one-upmanship and passive aggressive action. Always been the best at hiding how she truly felt; how she really saw the world.

But for the first time, she'd lost at her own game.

**((****This took forever to write even though it isn't that long...**** I just want to say thank you to anyone who posted a review! There aren't many, but it still motivated me to finally finish this chapter! I already have the next one drafted so hopefully that will be coming out soon as well))**


End file.
